Day 11 Thursday, July 14, 2022

 Breakfast

We got up bright and early on Thursday. At breakfast, Tom explained his plans for us to go to the Falls in the morning after breakfast, after lunch, and again after dinner. He explained that the observation decks get more crowded as the flying-in, day-tripping people got there. Turned out, the day was cloudy, so we had fewer people out there early as the clouds kept the flights down to a smaller number.

After breakfast, our group walked out to the observation decks. Yes, another 1.2-mile brisk hike in the morning. We saw fewer bears out at the river that morning than the day before. We never saw as many bears as at the first viewing. Of our group of eight (which included Tom), four of us were very excited about the bears and four of us were less excited. The four who were the less excited group were the bunch from Texas. Despite that everything from the observation platform was interesting to watch.

As I watched the salmon jumping up the falls, I couldn’t quite decide who I was rooting for, the bear to catch one or the salmon to escape being caught. In the end, I did a bit of cheering for both. If a salmon slipped by, I’d cheer. If a bear caught one, I’d cheer for that, too.

Tom is a very accomplished outdoor photographer. Most of these photos are his that he shared with us. See more of his photographs on his website at https://www.seeing4yourself.com/.

Baby Bears

One thing we learned about bears is that the mama bears have to be very protective of the babies. The big male bears are not above having tasty baby bears for snacks. We watched one baby bear up in a tree close to the observation deck while mama fished for salmon in the river below. The baby seemed uncomfortable as he shifted from branch to branch in the tree, but he stayed where he’d been told to stay.

Other Wildlife

As I said yesterday, the boardwalk and the gates onto them reminded us no one really wanted humans and bears to tangle.

We enjoyed lots of wildlife on our viewing that day. Not only did we see the bears and the salmon, but we also saw bald eagles and mamma ducks with their babies.

In the picture above you see mama duck keeping her baby ducklings close by, up on her back even. However, evidently, they also had a daycare system where other mama ducks would leave their darlings with one duck so they could go off foraging. See the picture below for that experience. So many ducklings!

The eagles lay in wait for the leftovers from the bears as did the seagulls. The seagull dragged off its haul.

Lunch and indigenous home replica

We ate our meals together. It was easier for Tom to tell the cashier who we were when we were together. Since we paid together, we sat at the same table. All the better to talk about our experiences. Krista told us about them coming back from the observation deck with a ranger and the ranger took them off the trail into the forest because a bear was on the trail. Krista showed me a photo she took from the forest of the bear on the trail. It was so big and so close. Really gave me the shivers.

Also at lunch, Tom told us that there was a ranger-led tour of an indigenous home replica that afternoon. We all decided to go and met the ranger for the tour, which was interesting. She said that there were not the number of bears in this area that there are now. They know that because the people who lived there were able to catch salmon and dry them successfully. If there had been as many bears, they would not have been able to dry salmon and keep the bears away. The Park Ranger people built a replica of the winter quarters of the indigenous people and then built a cabin around that to protect it from weather and vandalism.

After the tour, the Texas four went back to our room to rest, while the other four went back out to the observation deck. Not me, I was done. John and I spooned in the bottom bunk. I read and we napped and we just generally rested. I was so tired and I’d seen enough bears for the time being.

Dinner and more bears

After dinner, we all went back out to the observation deck together.

John and I got tired of watching bears before anyone else. I love Tom’s pictures. However, while there, after a while, one bear catching a salmon looked just like the other bear. John and I decided to walk back to the cabin by ourselves.

In bear school, we learned to make people noises as we walked, so any bears on the trail could have the choice of getting off the trail when it hears us coming. We kept a sharp eye out for bears. I was singing the song Sing. It was the only song I could think of that I knew the words to. Cathy liked to sing The Bear Went Over the Mountain, which made me laugh. At one point in the trail was a blind curve, we paused and then walked very slowly. John was on the right of me and could see farther around the curve. “Bear,” he said.

“Shit, what do we do?” I whispered. I certainly had no desire to tangle with a bear on the trail when it was just the two of us. “Let’s go back and see if anyone else wants to go back with us,” I said. John agreed. Maybe a larger group of people would be better. As it turned out, it didn’t matter.

When we got to the observation deck, we told them what we’d seen. Cathy and Karen said they were ready to go back. The other couple came with us, too. I liked those numbers. Six instead of two felt better and noisier. We had not gone too far down the trail when Krista caught up with us. Then we met a couple of women who had bear spray. They were camping out there. Now that takes some courage. Not me, thank you very much. That brought our group to 9.

Bear close up

Still, we saw a bear on the trail. I think this one might have been a different bear because this one appeared to be a mama bear with some cubs. I really didn’t want t mess with her. She was coming our way and didn’t seem to be deterred by the number of people we had in our group. Dang. Someone suggested the forest and we bailed on the trail scrambling into the woods. It was the only time on the entire trip that I was glad to have on those high-top hiking boots to protect my feet and ankles.

This was not a wooded area with no undergrowth. The forest was carpeted with small shrubs and who knew what else. It was hard to find the ground with that much undergrowth. Karen said she was glad that Alaska didn’t have any snakes. Yes, we Texas people think of snakes when we are ankle-deep in the underbrush.

Finally, the bear ambled by, totally unconcerned about us. We, on the other hand, were very concerned about her and glad she had passed us by. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to take a photo of the bear as it went by, but I didn’t. I was just glad it was gone. After the bear passed us, our group stayed in the brush and whispered to each other about how long should we wait before we came out of the forest. We sure didn’t want to have the bear change her mind and come back the way she’d come.

Another group of people

After we finally came out of the forest and were back on the trail, we met a group of people coming toward us. After they passed us, we talked about it and decided that the bear had people behind it and so didn’t feel comfortable going back, so she kept going forward into our group. We thought the people who were behind it were dumb because they kept coming towards it.

Evidently, they didn’t feel like the situation endangered them, but if that mama bear had gotten caught between our two groups, it might not have gone as well. Whew, a close call and about all I wanted to do with bears. We didn’t go back out to the observation deck again.

Good night

If you look at my Fitbit data below, I’m pretty sure that was the largest number of steps I took throughout the entire trip. Tired Susan. That night, I slept on the top bunk and let John have the bottom bunk. The ladder to get up there was made of steel tubing and that really hurts feet. I wore my hiking boots on the ladder and then took them off once I was sitting on the end of the bed. I handed my shoes to John and he put them on the floor. Throwing them off the top bunk seemed a little noisy for the neighbors and roommates.

I remembered to bring an earplug with me that night. I’m glad I did. There was snoring that night. I needed only one earplug because I’m a side sleeper. One ear on the pillow with the Sleep with Me podcast going on the phone and one ear plugged. When I rolled over, I just moved the earplug to my exposed ear.

July 14 Fitbit Data: 19,134 steps, 7.6 miles, 1916 calories, 11 floors, 103 active minutes

Tomorrow we say goodbye to Brooks Falls. I wasn’t sorry. I was ready to go. It was a glorious end to a wonderful trip. But we still had one more bear adventure to go. Stay tuned.